


Our Toil Shall Strive to Mend

by Marivan



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Exiled Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Kid Fic, Original Character(s), Parenthood, Post-Canon, Pre-Booker/Nile if you squint, Soft Booker | Sebastien le Livre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27416758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marivan/pseuds/Marivan
Summary: Squeezing the phone between his ear and one shoulder, he lifted the fussy baby from her bassinet up against his other. She let loose another little whine, this one certainly audible on the other end of the line.“Booker,” said Nile slowly, “is that acatin the background?”He froze. “A cat? Yes, of course. This little lady was hanging out by the trash bins for my flat, squawking up a storm and hungry as hell. No mama to be seen, so I’ve taken her in for a couple of days.” There. It wasn’t a total lie.---Or, Booker, exiled, drunk and alone, takes in an abandoned baby. He doesn’t tell anybody. He definitely doesn’t fall a little bit in love.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman
Comments: 114
Kudos: 300





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, a shout out to The Old Guard folks on tumblr and discord for their inspiration and encouragement.
> 
> Have you seen the photos of Matthias holding small children? I could not resist.
> 
> Also, be forewarned, apparently drunk Booker swears. A lot.

“Swords? Sure. Swords are fine. But I absolutely draw the line at learning to ride a horse. Can you believe it? When was the last time you rode a fucking horse?”

Booker huffed a laugh. “Probably the American Civil War?”

“Shit, Book, see what I mean? Un-freaking-nessecary in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty.”

A cry from the other room jerked Booker’s head around from where he sat on the sofa. He stood and strode towards the bedroom door. “Look, no argument here.”

Another cry, more of a mewl this time. Apparently this one was audible through the phone. “Everything okay over there?” said Nile, her voice full of concern.

“Yeah yeah, everything’s fine,” replied Booker. Squeezing the phone between his ear and one shoulder, he lifted the fussy baby from her bassinet up against his other. She let loose another little whine, this one certainly audible on the other end of the line.

“Booker,” said Nile slowly, “is that a _cat_ in the background?”

He froze. “A cat? Yes, of course. This little lady was hanging out by the trash bins for my flat, squawking up a storm and hungry as hell. No mama to be seen, so I’ve taken her in for a couple of days.” There. It wasn’t a total lie.

“Good for you,” came Nile’s quick response, fully earnest. She paused and then, “Well I’ll let you get back to feline fatherhood. Thanks for… this. It helps.”

“I’m glad.”

“Bye.”

“ _Au Revoir_ ”

She hung up. Baby still propped against his chest, he extracted the phone from between his shoulder and his ear and glanced down at the now dark screen.

“Ah _Merde._ ”

\---  
 **One Month Earlier**

It was late. Or early. Fuck, Booker didn’t know, not what time it was, not how many drinks -- _bottles?_ \-- he’d consumed, but christ it was dark out and if his nosy landlady didn’t see him returning to his flat after dawn for the fifth -- _sixth?_ \-- night in a row well that was just fine and dandy thank you very much.

The wind picked up and the fallen leaves swirled around his ankles and he hunched into the collar of his coat against the cold. He was stumbling down the alley, because fuck walking all the way to the front door when this way would get him horizontal on his shitty, second-hand sofa all three minutes faster, when he heard it.

His head jerked and his vision swam and he dropped the bottle he was holding, glass shattering and whiskey splashing on the pavement.

A cardboard box sat next to the rubbish bins. Nothing new there; just some fucker too lazy to open the lid and put his fucking trash inside. Booker groaned, despaired at the perfectly good whiskey now spilled all over the stone. He kicked at the shards of glass and fumbled in his coat pocket for his keys. And then he heard it again. A sound he’d heard many, too many, times before in basements and in back rooms, in orphanages and hospital wards.

He stepped towards the box and sank to the ground, his knees hitting the pavement with a crunch he ignored. He pulled back the flaps on the box and -- _christ he’d been right_ \-- there sat a babe, swaddled, maybe a couple of months old, but it’d been 200 years give or take since he’d been able to accurately ID the age of a child just by looking at it. The baby chose that moment to let out a howl.

“Well, we can’t have that now can we,” replied Booker, who settled the baby against him, propped with one arm -- _muscle memory, apparentl_ y -- and headed inside.

Later, much later, when he tells this story, he’ll say that he was “just being a good samaritan” or that he’s “not so heartless a bastard as to just leave a baby to starve out in the cold,” depending on his audience. These are both lies. There was no questioning of right and wrong, of moral good or bad. There was no thinking, not really. Maybe it was his many years as a mercenary. Maybe it was his years, many years before that, as a father to four sons. The moment he saw the baby in the box and that baby cried for help, his help? This is a crisis. I can fix this. And adrenaline surged through his veins.

\---  
He woke with a jolt to knocking at the door to his flat. Sunlight filtered in through the dingy windows, and he squinted into the brightness. The baby was blessedly still asleep on his chest. He hauled himself up from the sofa, shuffled to the door, flipped the deadbolt and opened the door one handed, the babe still snuggled against his neck.

“Bonjour Monsieur Durand,” sang his landlady, overly-effusive for whatever god forsaken hour of the morning this was. Her eyes widened at and lingered on the babe in his arms. Booker ignored this. His forehead, his brain, all of it throbbed. “There is a delivery for you. A rather _-ahem-_ large delivery.”

A scruffy, though uniformed youth appeared behind her with several parcels in his arms, all apparently for him. Booker grunted, his mouth much too cottony for words, and gestured for the youth to set the boxes down just inside the apartment door. The boy disappeared and returned a moment later with a wide, flat package balanced on one shoulder. Booker’s eyes widened, frowned, but he gestured to the same location and the youth deposited this too, leaning it against the wall.

The boy slipped out the door, but his neighbor remained, cooing at the baby. Booker closed his eyes. He opened them. The lady was still there and, by the looks of it, poised to launch into a litany of questions. “Babysitting for a few days,” he mumbled, “excuse moi” and shut the door firmly in her face.

_What in God’s holy name had he done?_

\---  
Apparently, absolutely sloshed Booker made for an excellent emergency online shopper. Especially since absolutely sloshed Booker cared nothing for the credit card bill this Durand alias would need to pay come the end of the month.

After a momentary panic of where to put the babe down, he pulled a couch cushion onto the floor and laid the bundle of babe atop that. That would be safe enough for the moment. He grabbed for his flask and took a swig. His shoulders ached, he realized, from hours of carrying the weight of the babe. He gulped down another long drink. The smaller packages contained a box that promised to make milk for the baby, some strange, stretchy paper sacks that claimed they were diapers, a couple of swaddling clothes, a floppy stuffed giraffe. Booker took another swig and the whiskey burned, painful and alive.

Over the course of the morning he changed the babe, fed her, burped her, introduced her to her new friend, the giraffe. He drank through it all, out of habit, out of need. When her eyes wilted closed and her eyelashes fell dark against her precious round cheeks, Booker sank to the ground and started in on the bigger box, a crib, which -- _mon dieu_ \-- apparently required him to assemble it.

His first spare thought, through the haze of whiskey and the frustratingly fiddly bits on the crib, is that the baby needs a name. He can’t call her “the baby” forever.

His second is that he should call Copley, or the authorities. No, definitely Copley. Looking around at his apartment newly overrun with baby supplies, he knows instinctually that authorities would ask too many questions for which he doesn’t have answers.

Turning back to the half-built crib, he doesn’t do either.

\---  
The next evening, Booker’s phone chimed as he’s eating a slice of pizza and waiting for the formula to warm. Little Aliette gurgled, gripping her giraffe and sucking on an ear.

**Nile:** Went to the Rijksmuseum today and I gotta say I just don’t get the Dutch Masters.  
 **Nile:** Like they’re fine, I guess? But nothing to write home about.  
 **Nile:** Please tell me you understand.

**Booker:** You’re telling me this because Joe won’t hear of it?

**Nile:** Bingo.

**Booker:** The man’s entitled to his wrong opinions.

**Nile:** Oh THANK GOD I’m not the only one.

Booker chuckled, a slight smile spreading across his lips.

**Booker:** No, you’re not.  
 **Booker:** Other than disagreeing about art, you good?

He paused, considered whether he should actually send the question he’s just typed out. He liked this texting thing with Nile, this lifeline to the family he has left -- _the family he betrayed, the family he won’t see for another 99 years_ \-- but doesn’t want to overstep. He pressed send anyways. His phone chimes again almost immediately.

**Nile:** Yeah. You?

**Booker:** Yeah. Same old. Same old.

The timer beeped and Booker pulled the bottle from its warm water bath on the stove. Little Aliette reached up when she saw him draw near and he scooped her into his arms and pressed the bottle to her lips.

Something bloomed in his chest and he tried not to think about what that meant.

\---  
The next day, he ran errands with Aliette in a carrier against his chest, to the liquor store to stock up on whiskey and the boulangerie to buy some fresh bread. Madame Cousteau, the baker’s wife, practically melted upon meeting little Aliette, bustling out from behind the counter and running a finger over her little round cheek. Even though Booker protested -- he’s just babysitting, afterall -- Madame Cousteau sent him home with an additional baguette, gratis. “Looking after your little friend will knock you out if you’re not careful,” she said with a knowing wink. “Here, make sure you keep up your strength.” Booker thought that the whiskey was more likely to knock him out than Aliette, but he kept this reflection to himself.

Slowly, Booker settled into life with his new roommate.

He bought a stroller, and bundled Aliette in layers upon layers for their excursions to the park. Booker would walk and walk, wander aimlessly, watching Aliette hold her giraffe close with one hand and reach toward him, toward the sky and the trees and the big, bright new world with the other. Occasionally, he’d see a flash of Jean-Pierre in the part of her lips and the round wonder in her eyes, or a flash of Phillipe in the scrunch of her nose and forehead just before a huge, hungry wail. In those instances Booker felt punched in the kidneys, shot through the head, the pain blinding and fast and everywhere and inescapable. He would grip the handle of the stroller till his knuckles almost burst through his skin with one hand, fish the flask out of pocket with the other and drown the whole of it, in one burning, desperate go. Momentarily inured to the pain, he would turn the stroller around and head for home, looking anywhere, everywhere, but Aliette’s little face.

At night, Booker found himself gasping awake, often more than once. This was nothing new: visions of bloody fists on iron, of lungs filling with water, of anger and insane despair, of screams muffled by the unrelenting ocean, had plagued his sleep for over 200 years. Now though, some of the cries that woke him were real, from the bassinet next to his bed. Booker felt something almost like relief each time he woke to find it was Aliette calling out for him. He could do something for Aliette. He could help her, comfort her, make it better. And after changing her or feeding her and rocking her slowly back to sleep, Booker found he neither needed nor desired the burn of alcohol down his throat to find sleep again himself.

\---  
“So, when will little Aliette’s parents be back, Monsieur Durand?” asked Madame Cousteau at the boulangerie. “You’ve been baby-sitting her for what? Two weeks now? I could never have imagined leaving any of my babes for that long at that age.”

“Her parents are academics whose research takes them abroad for long stretches,” he improvised, with years of practice. “They had the chance to travel to - uh - Zaire, but couldn’t risk bringing the baby with him. So Uncle Booker gets to baby-sit for a bit longer.”

Madame Cousteau looked up at him. “Lucky you.”

“ _Oui._ I am.”

Booker suppressed the urge to flee the shop. Madame Cousteau seemed to believe him, or was at least too polite to call out a complete stranger on a bullshit story. Even back in the safety of his flat, with Aliette laid down for her nap, something about the encounter rankled him.

He would have to find a new boulangerie.

\---  
It took him a week after the incident at the Cousteau’s boulangerie -- a week of running through the perfect, but not too obviously perfect, reasons for why he, an single, and oft inebriated, middle aged Frenchman would be responsible for a months old babe -- before he finally caved. While Aliette was down for her nap, Booker pulled up the _aide sociale à l'enfance_ website.

Booker hadn’t been a forger for years, not really, but he thought, he hoped, that he knew enough to do this right.

Over the next few days, between errands and walks in the park, between reading to Aliette and playing with blocks, between feedings and diaper changes and naps, between bath time and bedtime, Booker slowly pieced together his plan.

For weeks, the kitchen table was overrun with documents and ink until Booker had a birth certificate and adoption paperwork crafted to his satisfaction. Then, the coffee table was strewn with print outs and sticky notes, as Booker left all the necessary digital footprints. Database entries. Legal forms.

And then, he waited. Jumping at every jangle of keys and slam of other apartment doors in the hallway. Reaching for Aliette every time he heard a claxon on the street. Sure that he had fucked this up too, that the authorities would discover his deception, that they would take Aliette away from him, like everything else.

After one of his neighbors apparently didn’t wish to see a particularly persistent visitor, and the knocking sent Booker sprinting to the bedroom for Aliette and reaching for his flask, he realized he hadn’t slipped it into his pocket this morning, hadn’t wanted it since… since yesterday? _Huh._

As he held Aliette in his arms before their bedtime that evening, he was the one who cried. He looked down at the innocent wonder in her eyes, the rosy blush of her cheeks, her little baby smile. He brushed his lips against her forehead. “You are mine,” he murmured, “to protect and to cherish and to love. Forever.”


	2. Chapter 2

Nile ended her call with Booker and sat still on her bed. _Booker had adopted a cat?_ Of all things, her drunk depressed Frenchman was fostering a kitten. Nile couldn’t quite believe it, but then, what did she know about being alone? These days it seemed like every moment of her time was filled with sparring lessons and language lessons and cooking lessons and art lessons. She felt like she’d learned more from Andy and Nicky and Joe in the last few months than she had in all of high school. And she had gotten to teach them about memes and modern music and baked mac-n-cheese (no matter what Nicky said about it being an “abomination to proper pasta;” he’d come around).

She was also, she realized, deeply glad for her illicit conversations with Booker, as short and infrequent as they were. He always, always understood just how insane her life had become.

This fostering a cat thing, though. She wouldn’t claim to know Booker well -- she’d known him all of six months and hadn’t seen him since that afternoon on the bank of the Thames -- but she felt a kinship with him, both for this life and their previous ones. She trusted her instincts enough to believe that something, something about the cat was weird.

\---  
 **One Month Later ******

**Booker:** Happy New Year, Nile.  
 **Booker:** How’s learning to ride a horse?

**Nile:** That motion has been tabled for the time being. Nicky, bless him, has seen reason.

**Booker:** Didn’t realize the team had become a democracy.

**Nile:** It’s what we Americans do: bring democracy to the oppressed peoples of the world.

**Booker:** Please tell me you’re saying that in jest.

**Nile:** I was a Marine, not a robot, Book. It’s a joke.

**Booker:** That’s a relief.

**Nile:** But seriously, Andy is working on her “listening” and so we’re sticking to swords and other forms of combat that don’t involve horses for the moment.  
 **Nile:** Well hopefully forever, but as I said, “tabled.”

**Booker:** That’s good.

**Nile:** How’s the cat?

**Booker:** She’s good.

**Nile:** You’re loquacious today.

**Booker:** Nile.

**Nile:** Alright alright. Fine. I shall ask you ALL of the questions instead.  
 **Nile:** What is the cat’s name?

**Booker:** Her name is Aliette.

**Nile:** Do you like having a cat?

**Booker:** Yes.

**Nile:** Should we get a cat for the team?

**Booker:** Andy is allergic to cats. Or so she claims.  
 **Booker:** Ask Joe about Istanbul in ‘79.

**Nile:** oooooooooooh. Will do.  
 **Nile:** Any pics of Aliette?

**Booker:** I am not that kind of parent.

**Nile:** Suuuuuuuuuuure.

**Booker:** Really.

**Nile:** Mmmmmmhmmm. I bet you’re secretly smitten but don’t want me to know how hard you’ve fallen. I’ll let you keep your dignity just this once.  
 **Nile:** Be forewarned. I’ll keep asking.

**Booker:** Noted.

\---  
They ate dinner together almost every night, her and Andy and Joe and Nicky. She liked their dinners. It reminded Nile of her family, her other family, and that was a comfort as much as their conversations. These people had known each other for so unfathomably long and still had so much to share with each other.

Nicky opened a bottle of wine. Joe served up a skillet of shakshuka right onto a trivet on the table. Before anyone else could strike up a conversation, Nile blurted, “I want to talk about Booker.”

The other three froze.

“I know I’m not supposed to,” she continued, her words spilling from her lips, one on right top of the next, “but I’ve been talking to him and--”

“We know,” said Nicky.

Nile pulled up short, her eyes snapping to Nicky’s. “Wait what?”

“He didn’t betray you,” said Andy.

“He’s your family, too,” said Joe. “You deserve to get to know him.”

“You’re telling me, you KNEW?”

“Of course,” said Andy, “who else would you be talking to when you go off by yourself?” Joe raised his eyebrows and the corner of Nicky’s mouth twitched up.

Nile glanced away from the three of them. Her mind whirled. They knew. They _knew_.

“What did you want to tell us, Nile?” Nicky asked, pulling her from her thoughts.

Nile smirked. “Booker’s adopted a cat.”

Joe’s mouth fell open. Andy’s glass hit the table with a thud. “You’re shitting me,” she said.

“Yeah, it’s weird right?” said Nile. “Her name is apparently Aliette.” The three of them paused to consider that.

After a moment, Joe broke the silence. “Well, it is a healthier hobby than drinking.”

“He could use the affection,” said Nicky.

“At least he hasn’t done something really stupid,” said Andy. Nicky snorted.

Nile’s curiosity was piqued. “What could possibly be stupider than adopting a cat?”

“Oh, I don’t know, adopting a baby?”

Joe barked out a laugh. “That would be dumb. Can you imagine?”

“A cat,” added Nicky circumspectly, “is very reasonable by comparison.”

As the other three turned to new topics, Nile thought her _It’s weird Booker got a cat_ worry was maybe only 85% assuaged by this conversation. But it was enough, for now. At least, as the others said, it wasn’t a baby.

\---  
Even in the cold and grey of the Paris winter, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, Booker and Aliette went to the park. Booker would pick up coffee at his favorite cafe and would savor both the dark bitter drink and the crisp morning air as he and Aliette would walk the streets of Paris to the park nearest his flat. He still tucked a handgun into his jeans or the basket beneath the stroller -- some habits would never die -- but more often than not, the flask that had once been his constant companion remained on the counter tucked next to the salt and pepper and cooking oil.

At the end of their walks, Booker would always stop by the playground, watching the older children run and giving his feet a rest before the walk home. Sometimes he would bounce Aliette on his knee or lift her like an airplane above his head and she would babble in delight. Sometimes he would hold her in his arms as she clung to her giraffe. Sometimes she would curl a little hand around his finger, or he would drum his fingers against her feet. Sometimes Aliette would refuse, adamantly, to wear a hat or to keep the booties on her feet, and Booker would replace them diligently each time they came off.

After several weeks of this routine, a young woman sat down next to him on the bench. He turned, surprised, wary.

“ _Bonjour,_ ” he said shortly.

“Yours?” she asked, nodding towards Aliette.

“ _Oui,_ she is.”

“She’s a little angel.” The woman’s practiced fingers wiggled hello at Aliette and Aliette smiled and gurgled in response, clutching her giraffe. “My son,” the woman continued, pointing over to the playground equipment, where a boy stood on the top level of the structure and pretended to hold a spyglass to his eye, “has decided that he is a pirate.”

“He certainly seems to be taking his responsibilities very seriously,” said Booker. The woman laughed, deeply, musically. The tension in Booker’s shoulders eased.

“Oh yes, yes he is.” She turned to Booker. “I’ve seen you here before. My name is Sabine. That’s Malik.”

“I’m Sebastien, but everyone calls me Booker. This is Aliette.”

“Booker?” she asked, a smile spread across her lips. “That’s different.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’m sure.”

Booker looked at Sabine and then back at Aliette on his knee. He wasn’t sure the last time he had met someone new, someone who wasn’t also tending a bar or selling him something. He grinned. Aliette grinned back.

\---  
Sabine brought Malik to the playground on Wednesdays and Fridays. There weren’t very many other parents and kids around in the mornings and, to his surprise, Booker found he welcomed her company. He learned about Sabine’s husband who worked odd hours on the Paris Metro. He learned about how Malik was just starting to recognize letters, but he had memorized several of his favorite books, and delighted in “reading” them to his parents. He shared what he could about his adoption of Aliette. He commiserated with Sabine about the pitfalls of single (or largely single) parenthood. He graciously accepted her hand-me-down toddler clothes. When Aliette developed a stubborn diaper rash, he sought Sabine’s council on the best remedies. When Aliette started teething and was constantly cranky, Sabine -- bless her -- would hold her and give Booker a few minutes respite.

One Wednesday, a trainee at the cafe added milk to Booker’s coffee by mistake. The manager poured him a fresh cup, sans milk, and an apology, but Booker took the first drink with him anyways rather than have the cafe throw it out. He offered it to Sabine at the playground. Her smile glowed so brightly at this small kindness, that Booker intentionally ordered two coffees on Friday, one with milk and one without.

Several weeks later, Sabine was sitting next to him nursing her coffee, when she turned to face him. “Have you ever noticed how much Aliette adores you?”

Booker looked up from his arms, where Aliette was happily gnawing on a hard rubber ring. “What do you mean?”

“She looks for you and reaches for you constantly, even when I’m holding her or when she’s in the stroller. It’s like you’re the sun and she’s a sunflower and no matter where in the sky you are, her face seeks out your warmth.”

Booker looked at Sabine for a long moment, and then looked down at Aliette, who clutched the teething ring in one fist and reached for his shirt with her other. “Really?” he said, finally, overcome and disbelieving.

“Oh honey,” replied Sabine. “She is very lucky to have such a wonderful papa.”

\---  
Like all things in Booker’s long, long life, the peace and quiet joy could not, would not, last.

Returning from the park and a debate with Sabine about the fairness of team selection for the World Cup one Friday, Booker pulled out the key to his flat, only to notice that the door was already ajar.

Panic rose with the bile in the back of his throat. He flattened himself to the wall, muscles tensed, and took stock of the situation. Aliette dozed in the carrier against his chest, her cheek pressed against her giraffe and her nose nuzzled into his shirt. He grabbed his handgun from the rear waistband of his jeans, checked that it was loaded, flipped the safety off. He ran a hand over the soft curls on Aliette’s head.

Gun raised, finger on the trigger, Booker pushed open the door.

“Hello, Booker,” said the dark haired woman in red leaning against his kitchen counter, “It’s nice to finally meet you.” She took a long sip from the glass of water in her hand. “And who is this?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for your lovely, kind words on the first chapter of this fic. I hope it continues to bring you joy!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for some cannon-typical violence in this chapter.
> 
> Thanks, once again, to all the lovely people reading and supporting this fic. 
> 
> Enjoy!

_“Hello, Booker,” said the dark haired woman in red leaning against his kitchen counter, “It’s nice to finally meet you.” She took a long sip from the glass of water in her hand. “And who is this?”_

Booker fired. Two quick shots, right to Quynh’s heart. She crumbled to the floor. The blood splatter would be a bitch to clean up, but right now he had greater concerns.

Tucking the gun back into waistband, he grabbed the quilt from his bed and dashed into the bathroom. He set the quilt in the bathtub, and put Aliette and her giraffe on the quilt. She sat and looked at him with her big, round eyes.

“I love you,” he said, kneeling to kiss the top of her head. “I’ll be right back, I promise.”

His heart cracked a little when she cried out for him as he stood. He pushed the feeling down. He was not leaving her. There was a madwoman in his home and the bathroom, with it’s small space and small window, was the most defensible, safest place for her. It was the best he could do. He hoped it would be enough.

He was standing over Quynh, gun in hand, when she came to.

“You killed me,” she stated.

“I did.”

“And the baby?”

“What do you want, Quynh?”

The woman laughed, sharp and grating to Booker’s ear. She pushed herself to her feet. Booker did not back up. Quynh moved right into his space.

“The truth.”

“About what?”

“About everything.” Booker raised an eyebrow at her. “You. Andromache. The baby. Your separation. _Everything_.” Her fist connected with his jaw. He jerked back and then bent double with the pain and the surprise.

Barley keeping his grip on his gun, still hunched and breathing heavily, Booker looked up into Quynh’s face. “What do you want?”

Her knee connected with his sternum, sending him backwards. His head hit the hard back of the sofa. The gun went flying. Her eyes bored into his. “Start. Talking.”

Booker snorted and her eyes narrowed. _Good. Keep her focused._ “You’ll have to be more specific, I’m afraid. It’s been nearly 200 years.”

Quynh howled and pressed a booted foot against his genitals. _Shit shit shit._ “Start with Andromache.”

Booker remained perfectly still. “What about her?”

“Do you love her?”

“Yes--” the boot pressed more sharply against him. “--but not like that.”

“Say what you _mean_ , Booker,” Quynh spat. In a whirl of red, Quynh’s weight fell on top of him and her hand, strong for it’s small size, squeezed pressure points of pain into his jaw. “So you fucked her without loving her.” A statement, not a question.

Booker’s head spun. “No,” he said emphatically, instinctually. _That’s the answer she needs._ But then Quynh’s hands slipped from his jaw down to his throat and he hated people touching his throat, still after all these years, and Quynh, who had been in his dreams every night for the last 200 years, _knew_ that. “I mean, yes, fuck,” he spluttered unsure if Quynh’s fingers or his own mind were causing his airway to constrict. “It was once. A hundred years ago. We were both stupid drunk. And lonely. And angry. And it never happened again.”

Her fingers released from around Booker’s neck. She sat back. Booker breathed, only to have the muzzle of a gun, his own gun, pressed into his forehead.

“Liar,” Quynh hissed. “Clearly it happened again. And you, selfish bastard, took the baby and left her. Left them. Destroyed them.”

Booker couldn’t help but laugh. _She couldn’t have it more wrong._ The muzzle of the gun pressed more firmly into his skull. “Give me the baby.”

“No.”

“You destroyed her happiness. I destroy yours. Where is she?”

“Quynh, please, let me explain.”

The gun pulled away from his head and a bullet tore through his thigh. The flesh around the wound charred at the point blank range. “Fine,” Quynh said, sliding the gun into her coat pocket, “I’ll find the baby myself. It’s not like there are that many places for you to put her in this hell hole.”

She rose to her feet and turned towards the back of the flat. Booker lunged for the hem of her coat. His thigh exploded with pain so acute it pricked tears in his eyes. It didn’t matter. _Protect Aliette. You promised._ His fingers grasped the red wool and he tugged. Quynh began to shrug out of the coat. No longer attached to her body, the tension in the coat went slack. Booker shouted, “Quynh-- Andy-- she’s not healing any more.”

Two steps away from the bathroom door, from Aliette, from the end of everything Booker held dear, Quynh paused and glanced over her shoulder.

“Andy’s mortal,” he continued. “Her wounds don’t heal any faster than a normal person’s.” Finally, the flesh of Booker’s thigh had knit back together. He grimaced in pain, but with the help of the couch back, managed to stand. Quynh was back in his face in an instant.

“You better be telling the truth, Booker.”

“I wouldn’t lie about that.”

“Even to protect the baby?”

“Go to Andy and ask her, if you don’t believe me.”

“I will. Where are they?”

“I don’t know--”

Quynh spat in his face.

“--though I can find out.” He wiped her saliva off on his sleeve. “But only if you promise me something in return, first.”

Quynh narrowed her eyes and took half a step back. “You drive quite a bargain, Booker,” she said, impressed, almost pleased. “What must I do in order for you to give me this information?”

“Don’t tell the others about Aliette.”

“You mean the baby?” Quynh laughed, deep and throaty. Booker could almost see the wild spitfire Andy had fallen for millennia ago underneath the brined armor of anger and revenge. “That’s all?”

“Yes.”

A sly smile played at the corners of her lips. “How can you be sure I’ll keep my end of the bargain once I leave here?”

“I guess I’ll have to trust you.”

“Fine.”

“Good. I’ll call Nile.”

\---  
Andy and the others were holed up in Orvieto, a little plateau-top village north of Rome. Booker recalled his one stay there as being lovely, but he nevertheless cursed them for choosing that particular house, and not, say, one in some major transportation hub this side of the Alps. It ended up taking a whole handful of bus tickets to get Quynh there from Paris.

As Booker worked on arrangements, Aliette spent the rest of the day back in the carrier against his chest. She was displeased with this, squirmy and squawking. But Booker didn’t trust Quynh, despite their truce, and didn’t dare leave Aliette alone with her, even for a moment.

Despite these inconveniences, he bundled Quynh off with all due speed, desperate to get the woman out of his flat and out of his life.

Yet, Booker found the paranoia hard to shake. Quynh had roared into his new-found life ready to dance as her misconceptions engulfed it in flames. He supposed he understood her anger and her violence. _Hadn’t he nearly done the same for the others?_ Still, he couldn’t lose the feeling that danger lurked constantly over his shoulder, ready to stab him in the back.

He knew it was foolish. He knew the pediatricians might even call it dangerous. But that night, he shoved his hand gun under his pillow and laid Aliette to sleep on his chest, a hand resting protectively on the back of her head.

For the first time, they both slept through the whole night.


	4. Chapter 4

Orvieto was famous for the wines produced in the hills surrounding the city. And if they were going through bottles of wine at an alarming rate? Well, the wine was good and Nile cherished their dinners each night, loose limbed and loose tongued, joking and laughing with these marvelous people she now called family.

Orvieto bustled with tourists and families and shoppers during the day, but the nights were quiet, the visitors on the trains back to Rome and the locals bedded down at home.

Thus, a knock on the door at 10 in the evening made everyone around the table freeze, even if they were two bottles in and long since finished with dinner.

Andy rose first. “I’ll get it.” She grabbed a handgun from the table next to the coat rank, and prepared to open the door.

It was only then that Nile’s brain caught up with the present and she realized she knew who exactly was at the door. She tried to hide her smile in a sip of wine, but living with the same four people, the same four observant, thousand year old people, meant that they could already read her tells.

“What is it?” Joe asked.

She smiled, wider this time, and took another sip of wine.

Andy opened the door. “Ho-ly Fuck,” she shouted.

All three of them were on their feet.

There on the doorstep stood a dark haired woman in red, a switchblade in one hand and Andy’s hand in her other, a bright red slash across Andy’s palm. The gun lay on the floor, forgotten.

“So it’s true?”

“Quynh?”

“You’re not healing any more.”

They stared at each other, unmoving.

“Perhaps,” said Joe tentatively -- neither woman withdrew their gaze from the other -- “we might want to bring this conversation inside?”

“Joe,” said Andy, low and measured. Her eyes never strayed from Quynh. “We’ll need another chair.”

“Yes, boss.”

“And Nicky? Another bottle of wine.”

“On it, boss.”

Andy grabbed Quynh’s shoulders and hauled her into their home, sitting her down in what had been Andy’s own seat. Nile was left to close and bolt the door behind them.

\---  
Sunday slipped into Monday and still the five of them sat around the table. Nobody had gotten up to do the dishes.

500 years was a long time to catch up on. The misconceptions and complications of the last few months alone took well over an hour to untangle.

The darkness outside their windows had begun to lighten into grey and Nile did her best to hide a yawn behind her hand.

“Tired, little sister?” asked Quynh and Nile nodded. “Well, I have one more thing before we send the three of you off to your rooms so Andromache and I can catch up some more.”

“As subtle as ever, older sister,” said Nicky.

“What’s this news?” asked Andy.

Quynh smirked. “Booker’s adopted a baby.”

“What?

“Ma dai.”

“Motherfu--”

“Shit really? An actual human?”

\---  
Much to Quynh’s chagrin, running on no sleep and ungodly amounts of coffee, the five of them left Orvieto that afternoon.

\---  
Booker woke to the sound of Aliette crying and he groaned. She’d just started sleeping through the night. _So had he._

He reached for Aliette in her crib next to his bed. With an additional moment of wakefulness, he realized that Aliette’s cries weren’t the only thing disturbing the stillness. Someone was pounding on his door. In the middle of the night.

He scooped Aliette into his arms, which brought her volume from a wail down to a moan. He ambled through the main room and snagged his handgun from the bookshelf. He unbolted the door, opened it a crack.

There stood the four people he both most and least wanted to see in the world. And Quynh.

“Well fuck.”

“Are you going to let us in, Book?” asked Andy.

Booker kicked open the door with his foot, turned, and moved to the kitchen to start warming up formula for Aliette.

_What the fuck was he going to do now?_

\---  
All five of them, somehow, had squeezed onto his sofa. He sat down on the coffee table across from them, a nursing Aliette in his arms.

“Why are you here?” He frankly didn’t care if he sounded irritated. He wasn’t supposed to see them for another 98 years and it was the middle of the fucking night.

“You have a baby,” said Andy.

“Yes. Obviously.” Aliette squirmed and he resettled her in his arms. “Now answer my question; why are you here?”

“Have you thought this through, Book?” Andy again. “You do remember what happened with Jean-Pierre?”

_How DARE they._

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said standing up, “I’m going to go take care of my _daughter_ since we were both rudely awakened in the middle of the night. Then, and only then, will I deal with whatever the hell this is.”

He turned, strode to his bedroom, and slammed the door behind him.

\---  
“He said _daughter_ , right?” hissed Joe from one end of the sofa.

Andy pressed her palms to her forehead.

“This is serious, boss,” added Nicky.

“I know.” Andy kicked her heel against the floor. “Honestly, Nile, did you know?”

“About the baby?” Nile grimaced. “I do remember thinking something was weird? But, no, I honestly thought it was a cat.”

Andy’s forehead was still in her hands. “Why keep it such a secret though?”

They all were silent for a minute.

It was Quynh who spoke next. “Maybe because your punishment for him was to be _alone_ for a century?” All four heads turned to look at her. “Or because he suspected this was how you’d react? He did ask me not to tell you.” She shrugged and said nothing else. Neither did the others.

\---  
Aliette was mostly settled -- she could self-soothe the rest of the way to sleep -- and it was time for Booker to face his family -- _estranged family_ \-- sitting on his sofa on the other side of the door.

Booker entered and crossed the room, five pairs of eyes tracking his movement. He sat on the coffee table. For lack of anything else to hold onto, he placed his hands on his knees.

“That baby,” he gestured to the closed bedroom door, “is my daughter. Officially, she was adopted by a widower named Sebastien Durand at four months old after she was abandoned and became a ward of the state. Unofficially, I found her in a box by the rubbish bins behind this building, screaming from cold and hunger. I was drunk. I took her in. And then I couldn’t let her go.”

“Are you drunk now?” cut in Joe.

“No.” He took a breath and continued. “A parent should never have to bury their children. I watched all four of my sons die, at their bedsides, looking like their brother or their son. I cannot do that again.” He paused, inhaled a shaky breath. “There’s a trust set up for her, for whenever I have to leave. I’ve made sure she’s taken care of. But I have years until I can no longer hide from her what I am and her smile melts my heart every damn day. We go on walks and meet up with friends at the playground. I read her books and rock her to sleep. She is innocent and good and she gives my life purpose.”

He can’t bear to look at the five of them. Booker knows he’s on the verge of tears himself; he thinks he hears Nile sniffle. There's just a little bit more he has to get out before he can let go of whatever thread of self-control he has left.

“I have 98 more years of penance for the irreparable harm I caused our family. I deserve every moment of it. Maybe you think I’ve made a terrible mistake. But please, I beg you, do not take away the first good thing that’s happened to me in a long, long time.”

His head is in his hands and he sneaks a glance at them. Their expressions are inscrutable to him. They are silent. He hates it.

“Booker,” ventures Nile, softly. “You never said. Her name?”

He knows an olive branch when he sees one.

“Aliette,” he says, “Aliette le Livre.”

“Oh, Book.” Andy’s arms are around him, pulling his face into her neck, a hand to the back of his head. Almost like he does with little Aliette. And Booker cries in front of his family for the first time in 200 years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's stayed with the story this far. Y'all are the best.  
> And get ready to fasten your seat belts for the final chapter. :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Five Years Later**

July brings Bastille Day, the Tour de France, and a heatwave to Paris.

The children swarm around the playground and dash now and then over to the table laden with snacks for a juice box or a slice of melon. Booker moves between the little groups of parents, each with half an eye on the gaggle of children, thanking them for coming, sharing plans to escape the city for a bit, gripes about school uniforms and supplies, laments that their children grow up so quickly.

Booker’s phone begins to buzz in his pocket and he excuses himself from his current companions.

The family group chat, or at least the one with him in it, is used infrequently. Today someone -- Nile probably -- has coordinated a flood of messages.

 **Nile:** HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALIETTE!!!

 **Nicky:** Tanti auguri di buon compleanno, Aliette.

 **Joe:** عيد ميلاد سعيد

 **Quynh:** How’s the party, Booker?

 **Andy:** Say hi to the little monster for us.

Booker smiles, and quickly taps out his replies, eyes glancing up trying to spot his daughter in the melee of preschoolers.

 **Booker:** Aliette is thrilled to be turning five.  
 **Booker:** Party is good. Crazy. But good.  
 **Booker:** If I can get her to stand still, will send you all photos.

“Aliette,” he calls. “Aliette!” His daughter turns her head and spots him. She says something to her playmates and then dashes towards him. He kneels in the grass and she throws herself into hugging him.

“Papa!”

“ _Mon petit chou_ , you are enjoying yourself?”

“ _Tres bien._ ”

“Aunt Nile and Aunt Sabine each want me to send them a photo of you.”

“Okay.”

Aliette spins around, her poofy pink princess dress twirling with her. Then she plants her feet, draws the plastic sword from her belt and raises it over her head. Booker snaps photos throughout.

“Perfect, _mon coeur_.” She smiles shyly. Booker pushes an unruly dark curl back behind her ear and kisses her forehead. “Go have fun. Cake in a few minutes, okay?”

Aliette whoops and sprints off.

Booker sends the best of the photos to Sabine and to the family group chat. Sabine’s response -- “such a beautiful little lady” -- is almost instantaneous. He doesn’t expect to hear back from the others. This is the unspoken agreement they’ve come to. Booker is content to share the important moments of his and Aliette’s life, to know that they know. He does not expect them to reciprocate.

Booker serves birthday cake to the swarm of Aliette’s young friends, and then watches as they leave empty paper plates behind to run off this new burst of energy. As he’s scooping plates and forks into a garbage bag, his phone buzzes again.

 **Nile:** That’s our girl.

And then,

 **Nile:** Keep up the good work, Dad.

He doesn’t think his heart could grow any fuller.

\---  
In the way of children, the weeks pass slowly, but the years fly by.

Aliette is reading before he knows it, begins taking martial arts lessons, refuses to eat anything vaguely resembling a vegetable for an entire year. She goes to school, does her homework. She plays football and the cello. She wins the school spelling bee. She sticks up for a boy in her class who’s being bullied and finds herself bullied as a result.

Adolescence arrives. Booker teaches her how to drive, teaches her how to use a gun. Aliette joins the debate team at school and discovers she’s good at it. She’s handy with computers and likes math, but, to her father’s chagrin, she likes history class best of all.

Aliette has her first boyfriend. She tells her papa about her first kiss and Booker remains very cool on the outside while absolutely panicking internally. Later, he talks to his daughter about safe sex and healthy relationships and “it doesn’t matter who you love, but how you love them” and, thanks in large part to Nile’s coaching, he doesn’t totally mess it up. At the end of their talk, Aliette says “I’ll be careful, Papa,” and he knows without question that she will be.

He sends her off to university and begins dying his hair grey.

They video call at least once a week and Aliette texts him the occasional funny story or interesting fact or article she thinks he’ll like. He still calls her _mon petit chou_ and she tells him that he’s the only one of her childhood friend’s parents who still uses that pet name. Booker tells her, no matter what, that she’ll always be his little girl.

She graduates, and the photo Booker has of her with her diploma afterwards, joy and accomplishment on her face, will be the lock screen on his phone for years to come.

Aliette finds her own place in Paris, moves out of the two-bedroom apartment she was raised in, for good. She goes to work, does her own grocery shopping and laundry, pays her own bills and taxes. She meets Jean-Martin through the internet and Aliette describes their dates as tentative but charming. They go on more of them, relax into each other’s affections. She tells her father, after a lovely dinner and bottle of wine, that she thinks he might, maybe, just be the one.

But then Aliette turns thirty, and, as Booker promised himself years and years ago, it is time for him to go. He holds a small party to celebrate Aliette’s birthday. She is embarrassed that her father feels the need to throw her a birthday party, but he invites all those she holds dearest -- Sabine and Malik and Jean-Martin and her closest friends from childhood and university -- and her eyes sparkle when she blows out the candles on the cake, just like when she was younger.

Three days later, Aliette’s father, Sebastien Durand, dies in a gas leak explosion. There are no remains.

\---  
He returns to Marseille, to his birthplace, to start anew.

He once again hacks into the _aide sociale à l'enfance_ website, this time to make his new alias into a foster parent.

Over the next few years, many, many babies -- always babies and always boys -- share his home. Omar and Manu and Paul and Christophe and Khalid and all the others are too young to remember him. Booker remembers them all.

Booker watches his daughter’s life continue from afar.

He watches her marry Jean-Martin, start a non-profit, fight for immigrants rights. She has her first child, a girl, and then another, a boy.

Because of her work, she occasionally gets interviewed by the national press. Booker archives all of the TV segments and newspaper articles. She speaks with the compassion and authority he’s always seen in her. The first time she mentions unconventional families and how she recognizes the hardships her father, a single-parent, endured to raise her, Booker’s heart swells and his eyes glass with tears. “It was a labor of love,” he tells the TV screen, hoping she knows.

By the time Aliette’s children are teens, Booker decides it’s time, once again, to start over.

\---  
For something new, he moves to Bastogne, in Belgium.

He befriends the owner of the local bookstore, who offers him a job. He doesn’t mind the work, and occasionally he gets to chat with a customer who truly shares his passion for books.

He’s closing one night and there’s a teen sitting at one of the tables in the back who hasn’t moved in hours. Booker gives his customary “10 minutes to closing” and all the other customers make their purchases and trickle out. The teen doesn’t move.

Aliette had never been moody, but he’d learned that it was often better to wait till she was ready to broach a sensitive subject than bring it up himself. So Booker waited. He swept the shop, counted out the register, flipped off most of the lights. And then he slid into the chair across from the teen.

“You gonna kick me out now?”

Booker shook his head, pulled out a book, began to read. The teen watched him, as if at any moment he would ignite. Booker sensed this. He kept reading.

Finally, the teen spit out, “What’s your _deal_ , man?” and Booker looked up.

He shrugged. “I don’t know you and I don’t know your business,” he said. “But if you need somewhere to crash tonight, I’ve got a spare bedroom with a door that locks.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“The store closed 40 minutes ago and you’re still sitting here, yes?”

“Fine. I need to pick up a few things first.”

“Of course. Here’s the address. See you soon.”

\---  
Mal spends a couple of weeks staying in his spare room. Over that time, and with careful coaxing and the blueberry pancakes that were Aliette’s favorite, Booker learns that they’d been kicked out of their parents house for being “gay,” but actually they identified as asexual and gender-queer. He helps Mal get back on their feet, find a job and an apartment and a support group in nearby Liege. Just days after they’d moved out, Booker finds another desperate looking kid waiting for him on his stoop. “Mal said you had a room I might be able to crash in for a bit?”

And that’s how The Guard House began, a place for queer kids, driven out of their sleepy, conservative hamlets, to land on their feet.

Rule Number 1 at The Guard House is to use people’s correct pronouns. Rule Number 2, every new-comer learned, is that you call the head of the house just “Booker,” no _Monsieur_ necessary.

Booker teaches self-defense classes on Tuesday and Thursdays. He is just as likely to be found watching TV or reading a book in the living room after school as actually working in his office. All the Guard House kids adore him.

In the almost 25 years Booker works at The Guard House, rumor has it that he never took a sick day and took just one vacation, “to visit an old friend.” If Booker came back from that trip with bigger bags under his eyes and a hoarser voice than when he’d left, nobody commented on it in front of him.

\---  
He finds out from Copley’s replacement that she’s dying. Pancreatic Cancer. Stage 4.

He resigns from The Guard House, effective immediately, and moves back to Paris, needing to be nearer to her.

She dies, peacefully a few months later, surrounded by her children and grandchildren, at 96 years old.

Booker attends her funeral. _Aliette le Livre -- In Memoriam._ His granddaughter’s eulogy for her mentions the _grand papa_ she never knew, except through their mother’s stories of big and little moments from her young life, including the one, that rapidly gets labelled as “legend,” about her mother being found in a box behind a dumpster. Booker’s body heaves silently in an awful mix of pride and delight and regret.

He leaves before the reception, where he would have to face his grandchildren, and lie about what she was to him.

\---  
That night he sits in the apartment in which he raised Aliette. He is alone, again, for the first time in 96 years. He looks out her bedroom window and wonders what in the world he will do to fill the time and the hole in his heart.

There is a soft knock at the door. He’s not sure who could possibly know he’s here. He opens the door anyways.

Joe and Nicky and Nile and Quynh stand on his doorstep with warm eyes and sad smiles. Each embraces him, one after the other.

He joins them in the living room, where they are all still standing, waiting for him.

“Thank you for coming,” he says, “but I’ve still got four years left.”

“No you don’t,” says Quynh. He looks at her and tries to understand.

Nile takes a step forward, takes his hands in hers. “This feels like the ending of a chapter in all of our lives, but especially yours.” She reaches up to cup the back of his head. “Come home to us, Sebastien, please.”

He closes his eyes and presses his forehead against Nile’s. He breathes, “I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all she wrote.
> 
> Thank you for taking this journey with me. It's been an honor to be your conductor and tour-guide.

**Author's Note:**

> For this AMAZING kink meme prompt: **Booker + Becoming a surrogate father**
> 
> _Booker finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster. He decides to take care of it, forges documents, becomes a single father. In normal circumstances it’s probably a very bad idea but in the frame of this fic it’s a good thing that helps him find a new purpose in life. Just want to see single daddy Booker taking care of a baby._
> 
> Would this happen during his exile? I can just imagine the gang going to check up on him and oh- is that a baby Booker? Seriously?! Again!
> 
> _Absolutely during the exile. He’d be a sad single french dad who’d learn how to love again and keep away from booze because of The Love Of A Good Woman... no wait, sorry, wrong cliche scenario, because of The Love For His Child._
> 
> _Nile would phone him and be like “is that a cat in the background” and he’d be like “...sure?” and then 3 months later she’d be like “Guys, we need to have a serious conversation about Booker. I think he’s been breeding cats. Every time I phone him there are these noises” and they’d be like “oh that’s fine, I mean, that seems healthy, like a good hobby. Imagine if he’s done something really really stupid, like adopt a baby”_
> 
> Smash-cut to Booker with a baby.


End file.
